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User blog:JohnnyOTGS/JohnnyTalk World~When Japan tried to bomb the USA
Hello everybody and welcome to another edition of JohnnyTalk. Today I'm going to talk about something very interesting when it comes to World War 2, the time when Japan tried to make an attempt on a bombing raid on the United States. If you're one of those people that think Japan just made a bombing raid on Pearl Harbor..... Well, you'd be wrong. The fact that Japan made numerous attempts on trying to perform bombing raids on US military Bases. Like what they demonstrated in The Battle of Midway. Before the US Pacific Fleet came in and saved the base on the island, the Japanese were bombing it into submission, and hope to take the island and extend their defensive lines. But of course, after a long a hard fought battle Japan lost and the US would gain the initiative in the Pacific. But these weren't the only times Japan tried to bomb the USA, they also bombed another US base in Dutch Harbor on one of the Aleutian islands in Alaska. They also had some submarines that swam the jumbo colossal Pacific Ocean and were to attack certain areas on the US Mainland (such as Los Angeles' iconic "Hollywood" sign which prompted LA to get rid of the light system to make it less of a target for the Japanese). But that wasn't Japan's *only* attempt to bomb the US Mainland. By late 1944, Japan had come up with a way to bomb the US Mainland. Now this was an insurmountable challenge for Japan because of 2 major factors. First was the "Jumbo Colossal" Pacific Ocean. The distance between Japan and the US Mainland was over 5,300 Miles. Plus the Pacific Ocean became more hostile for Japan as the war wore on and the US was closing in. Another is that Japan (unlike the US) had a total lack of an actual long range bomber (which only compounded Japan's disadvantage), and because Japan gradually lost ground in the Pacific Theater they also didn't have a lot of resources to actually build one. But this didn't stop Japan from attempting to bomb the US Mainland. In late 1944 up to at least April 1945, Japan came up with a way. They made an incendiary bomb attached to a hot air balloon. This was known simply as a "Balloon Bomb" this would use the winds in the upper atmosphere to help guide the bombs to the US Mainland. The Japanese military knew that these bombs weren't big enough nor were they powerful enough to do any serious damage to even some of the USA's small cities. The purpose for these bombs is have them land in forests and cause fires to hope that this would distract the US Miltary and consume more resources to deal with the forest fires and thus allowing Japan to (somewhat) regain it's strength and slow down the momentum of the US Fleet in the Pacific. Japan has created around 9,000 of these Balloon Bombs, but only 300 of which actually reached the US Mainland (with the majority either being blown away by sudden changes in the wind, or shot down by US anti-aircraft). This US Map here shows which states (highlighted in Yellow) had at least one of Japan's Balloon Bombs to land. One of which actually got as far east as Michigan (landed on a farm only several miles from Detroit). The only city a Bomb has landed on, was Nebraska's capital city of Omaha. It only did minor damage was several buildings caught fire, but the fire fighters were able to assess to these fires and put them out quite quickly. No deaths or injuries were reported, though some people did report of unsuspecting fireworks going off as the bomb detonated. But Japan's Balon Bombs *did* claim some lives. Though, the death toll from ther bombs is only at a measly 7'', and it all happened in a countryside of Oregon near the town of ''Bly in March of 1945 when a Christian Pastor Archie Mitchell and his pregnant wife Elsie were with Archie's 5 students (4 boys and 1 girl) from Sunday School when they found one of these bombs on the ground while trying to find a place to have their picnic. One of the boys touched the bomb and it went off, killing 4 of the boys and Elsie (as well as her and Archie's unborn child) instantly, the girl with them Joan Patzke died sometime after. Now, you might be thinking "Why didn't we hear about this before?" Well...... For a long time (even after the war) the US Miltary kept this a secret. The US Military found a few of these 300 bombs that landed in the USA, and they decided to keep it a secret for 2 main reasons. First was to not have a negative effect on American morale. The US Military was so afraid of these bombs having a negative effect on morale and cause the citizens to lose their faith in the military and not buy War Bonds anymore. Another was to (ironically) have a negative effect on Japanese morale. The US Military wanted this to be kept from the media as much as possible so that the Japanese won't catch wind that the bombs actually made it to the US Mainland and not make more Balloon Bombs. The plan worked and Japan abandoned the Balloon Bomb project on the notion that the mission was a failure. After the war, more of these bombs were found in the western states and even Canada, and one of which was found as recent as October in 2014. Well, that's all I have for this. Don't forget to check out my Games and Movies wikis. Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out. Category:Blog posts